


We Will Foresee Obstacles

by blackwatchandromeda



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fake Science, Family, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Irondad, Panic Attacks, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Time Travel, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump, i cannot believe that's not a thing, i wrote this because i abjectly refuse to accept the ending to endgame, ironfam, morgan is an absolute sweetheart and must be protected, sibling relationships, spiderson, take that russos, technically this is canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-09 10:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18635953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackwatchandromeda/pseuds/blackwatchandromeda
Summary: Contains ENDGAME SPOILERS!"So are you gonna save him now?" Morgan asks, voice small.Peter smiles down at her. "Yeah, Mor. We are."-The war is over. Thanos has been defeated, the population has been restored, and Peter has lost one of the most important people in his life.After the funeral, Peter meets Harley and Morgan. They're all in the same position, all missing the same person, and it's not long before they come up with a scheme to save him.That is, if they can pull it off.-Post-Endgame fix-it fic because I refuse to acceptthat part. Contains plenty of Ironfam, with a healthy dose of May, Ned and fake time travel science.Contains ENDGAME SPOILERS!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so.
> 
> i absolutely loved endgame, but the ending left me emotionally wrecked and so my first reaction was to write a fix-it fic. i can promise you now, this _will_ have a happy ending! whew. if you've got this far, i have to assume you've seen the movie, but if you haven't and you've somehow missed my warning this contains major endgame spoilers!
> 
> anyway, here's my latest offering, we will foresee obstacles (title from obstacles by syd matters), alternatively titled _in which i attempt to comply with the mcu's ridiculous time travel rules_.

Peter has worn a variety of different suits in his time. He vaguely remembers being dressed up in a tiny suit for his aunt and uncle's wedding, years and years ago. He remembers, more recently, wearing Ben's old suit to homecoming; and, of course, there's the Spider-Man suit and its iron cousin.

This particular suit, though, all-black and stiffly uncomfortable, is the only one that's ever felt _wrong_ to wear.

It's a stark reminder that something is _missing_ , something he'll never get back. It doesn't feel real that he's standing here, watching Tony's wreath float away from them, knowing his mentor - his _dad_ \- is dead. They were supposed to have more _time_. Pepper and May and Happy are here, familiar faces, as well as the rest of the original Avengers, but Peter can see Tony's daughter from where he's standing. She's a visual reminder that it's been five years since Thanos killed half the world: five years since he died in Tony's arms.

It feels like five minutes since Tony died in Peter's.

A weird sense of numbness steals over him as he watches the wreath drift further and further away. The feeling of May's hand on his shoulder is fading, and it's like Peter is underwater. He can barely hear Pepper speaking about Tony, much less the eulogies that follow. His gaze is fixed; it's like his head is empty. Peter recognizes the feeling, that soul-stealing loneliness, from when Ben died. He should have realized it was inevitable he'd feel it again.

After the wreath finally disappears into the horizon, the mourners start returning inside. May gives his shoulder a squeeze before she heads in with them, telling Peter to stay if he needs to. When she leaves, he looks round to see the deck has almost emptied of people. He takes a step forward, to the edge, looking out towards the wreath that's still moving away from him. He wishes he could reach out and grab it, bring Tony back with the sheer force of his will. Instead, he sits down on the wood and dangles his feet over the edge. His dress shoes brush the top of the water, the toes likely getting wet. He couldn't care less. Right now, he doesn't particularly care about anything.

"Hey," comes a voice, and Peter looks up to see a curly-haired teen similar to his own age standing over him. "Can I sit?"

Peter nods, then realizes he probably needs to answer verbally. "Y-yeah. Sure."

"Thanks." The boy gets down beside him, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his arms on top. "I'm Harley," he offers.

"I'm Peter," Peter answers. "It's, uh... nice to meet you."

Harley lets out a humorless laugh. "Yeah. Could be under better circumstances, though."

Peter blinks, hating the heat that rises in his cheeks. He's too tired to cry, though, now. "Could be."

"He talked about you a lot," Harley says, and Peter turns to look at him.

"Huh?"

"Tony. Talked about you all the time. He really loved you, y'know? You could tell. He wouldn't shut up about you," Harley continues. "At least in the time before I got Snapped, anyway."

Peter's brow furrows slightly. "Oh. How did you, uh...?"

"Know him?" Harley completes. "Met him in Tennessee. Helped him with the -"

"- Mandarin," Peter finishes. "You're _that_ Harley."

Harley looks slightly amused. "Yeah, clearly. I mean... how many Harleys do you think he knows?"

Peter huffs. "I don't know. It's been a long day."

That kills the humor, because Harley's smile fades. "Yeah. Yeah, it has."

"He talked about you, too," Peter offers. "When we were working in the lab, he kept saying what you guys got up to. He, uh... I think he was going to try getting us to meet, before... all this." Peter waves his hand vaguely in the air, trying to encompass everything that happened without having to actually acknowledge it. _The Snap. The Vanished. Tony dying._

"I don't think so," Harley counters. "He told _me_ if we ever met we'd probably blow ourselves up, so it was best to keep us at opposite ends of the States."

Peter laughs, despite himself. "Yeah, that sounds accurate too."

"We haven't exploded anythin', though, so..." Harley makes a _pfft_ sound with the corner of his mouth, looking away. "Don't know what the fuss was about."

"We haven't exploded anything _yet_ ," Peter corrects. "Could still happen."

"Very true," Harley says, tilting a finger at him. "You want to try?"

Peter's about to reply when there's a scuffing noise behind him, and he twists to see Tony's daughter standing there, looking slightly like a rabbit in headlights. _Morgan_.

"Hi," she says quietly, waving faintly.

"Hey," Harley replies, and gives her a small smile. "You're Morgan, right?"

She nods.

"It's nice to meet you, Morgan. I'm Peter," Peter tells her.

"I know," Morgan says, slightly shyly. "Daddy talked about you all the time. And that's Harley," she adds, as if to prove her point, and Harley makes a choking noise and a muffled swear.

He stands, and Peter squints up at him, trying to ignore the bright sun above them. "I, uh... I'm goin' to head inside. Yeah." Harley claps his hands slightly, straightening up, and walks away. Peter can hear the slightly unsteady clip of his shoes on the deck.

Morgan comes up next to him, and Peter's suddenly hyper-aware of how small and close to the water she is. He throws out a hand on instinct as she wobbles before sitting down with a thump, legs swinging over the edge. She turns to beam at him, and it's like someone's hit Peter in the stomach. She looks exactly like Tony; her eyes are the exact same brown, her smile identical, though she's still so small. The air leaves Peter's lungs for a moment, and he struggles to breathe. He clenches his fists, looking out to the horizon past the water. He can't freak Morgan out.

"Did I make him sad?" comes a small voice, and Peter turns back to Morgan to see her looking up at him with worried eyes.

"No," Peter tells her, shaking his head. "No, he's just... he was sad already."

"Oh," Morgan says. "Is it because of Daddy?"

Peter swallows. "Yeah."

Morgan is silent, then, for several long moments. After a pause, she asks, "Are you Spider-Man?"

Peter nods, uncertain. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I am."

Morgan looks back out to the water pensively, like he's handed her another clue to some unknown equation. "Are you going to save my dad?"

Peter takes in a breath, because her tone is so full of _hope_ that it feels like his heart's being crushed all over again. "No, I'm not," he says heavily, willing himself to not cry. Tony's daughter is four and she's holding it together; he can too.

Morgan frowns. "Why not?"

Peter blinks back the rising wetness in his eyes, and turns to face her. "I can't, Morgan. I'm... I'm so sorry."

"You _can_ ," she argues. "It's _easy_."

"Morgan, I -"

"You just have to follow the instructions," she carries on, and Peter freezes.

"What?"

She falters, looking confused.

"What instructions?" Peter asks.

Morgan blinks up at him. "Daddy left instructions for the time stuff. In case they had to do it without him. You can use them to save him."

Peter's heart thumps in his ears. "Where?"

She twists round, pointing a small finger back towards the house. "In there. In case the other place got broken."

"Can you show me?" Peter asks softly, hardly daring to raise his voice.

Morgan nods, and pushes herself to her feet. "This way!"

She grabs his hand, surprisingly strong, and Peter stumbles as she tugs and nearly sends him sprawling. Morgan leads him in and up the stairs, holding on to the kid-sized handrail lining the stairs as she goes up, and then she drags him left at the top. They come to a stop in front of a closed door, and she reaches up to push the doorhandle open. The door swings away, Morgan half-skipping inside, and suddenly Peter is staring into what looks almost exactly like his room in the Compound. It's even got the same decor, Star Wars posters littering the walls and small figurines dotted around on the desk. He freezes, aghast, heart _aching_ , in the doorway. Morgan notices, because she slows down and comes back towards him.

"Daddy always said you were still in our family," she says, looking up with those hauntingly-familiar eyes, and Peter nearly starts crying on the spot. His eyes burn, and the world goes wavy through the tears in his eyes for a second.

"Really?" Peter whispers.

Morgan nods decisively. "Yep. Always."

"You know, you're... you're weirdly perceptive for a four-year-old," Peter says, slightly hoarsely.

Morgan nods. "Daddy said that, too." 

"Thanks, Morgan," Peter tells her. She gives him a wide smile in return, and snatches his hand again.

"C'mon!"

Morgan tugs him over to the corner, where there's a small, wooden box sitting on top of the end table. It's perfectly rectangular, with a small clasp at the front. Peter assumes it's to keep Morgan out, but the effectiveness of the clasp gets called into question as she starts balancing on her tiptoes to reach it. Her tongue sticks out of the corner of her mouth, and Peter knows he would find the sight hilarious if not for the scenario he's trapped in. Morgan bats at the box and it slides closer to the edge, where she grabs the clasp and flicks it upwards.

"Open it!" she tells him, turning and pointing at the box.

Peter steps over and opens the smooth lid gently. Light shines out from within as he does so, and then it's fully open and there's a flash drive plugged in to a metal rectangle in the middle of the box. A ring of light illuminates the bottom, red, seemingly emitted from the rows of red tubing arranged in rows around the drive.

"What is it?" Morgan asks.

Peter unplugs the drive, and brings it closer to show her. "It's a flash drive," he says. "And... weird stuff."

"Are you going to see what's on it?" she questions.

"Yeah, we are," comes a voice. Peter jerks and spins, nearly dropping the flash drive. Harley straightens from where he's been standing, leaning against the doorframe, watching them. "We're gonna get him back."

Peter takes a breath. "We don't know that." The hope trying to take root in his heart is painful, weighing heavy with the pain in his chest. He doesn't know if he can let himself believe Harley, if he turns out to be wrong. "How long have you been there?"

Harley shrugs, coming closer. "Yeah, we do," he says. "We go back in time like they all did before," he explains, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, "and this time we save him. And not long, but I overheard y'all earlier, by the way. I know it's about the time machine."

"We don't have any way of doing that," Peter argues.

"Build it!" Morgan pipes up, voice bright, and Harley raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, build it," he agrees. Peter opens his mouth to protest, but Harley holds up his hands. "We _can_ , Peter. I build stuff all the time. I helped him fix his suit in Tennessee, you know that?"

"I helped him too," Peter mutters, childishly, and Harley makes a wild gesture with his hands.

"Exactly! We both know how to build shit."

Morgan looks up at Harley then, suddenly, and Peter makes a face at him. "Don't swear in front of her!" he whispers loudly, and Harley grins a little.

"We know whose daughter she is," he says. "She knows worse than that."

"Yeah," Morgan agrees happily.

Peter rolls his eyes. "Okay, okay. But, Harley, we're... we're still nowhere near as smart as he is." A bolt of ice shoots down his spine. "W-was. As he was," he corrects.

"You are!" Morgan protests, and tugs on Peter's sleeve. "You built your - _pew-pew_ things," she says, making twin _thwip_  movements with her hands, snapping her fingers to her palms clumsily.

Harley's eyes narrow then, and Peter freezes. "Uh," he says eloquently.

"You're Spider-Man?" Harley asks, slightly breathless.

Peter rubs the back of his neck, feeling his face heat up. "Yeah," he says, after a pause.

"That's  _perfect_. We can definitely do this, Peter. And can't never could, y'know? We gotta try."

"Let's... let's look at the flash drive, first," Peter says. He still can't bring himself to let his hopes rise up. The likelihood is that this pipe dream of saving Tony is just that, and he's going to hurt even more if he lets himself believe it's not.

"Use that," Morgan says, pointing across the room to a StarkPad sitting on the wooden desk. Peter swallows.

Harley strides over and boots it up, holding out his hand for the drive as he sits. Peter hands it over, and the other boy plugs it in to the side of the computer. Peter leans over Harley's shoulder, Morgan on the other side of him, to see the screen as Harley opens the drive up. A folder opens, full of files.

"Aight," Harley murmurs, scrolling through them. "Let's see what we got."

The first few files Harley opens are schematics, blueprints and guides on how to operate and build the time travel machine. They're incredibly comprehensive, some pages littered with Tony's characteristic shorthand.

"This is it!" Harley says, sounding ecstatic. "Hell, this is everything we need. All we got to do now is -"

He clicks another file, and cuts off as a long text document opens up in front of them. Peter reads the title, and his spider-sense sparks dully in the back of his mind.

_DANGERS_

It's a terrifyingly long list, most items consisting of _getting lost_ or _being stuck between realities_. Peter gets colder with every line he reads, and, from Harley's muffled swearing, he feels the same way.

_This is a LAST RESORT_ , the document reads, underlined in bolded font. _DO NOT use this equipment unless absolutely necessary_.

"Hell," Harley mutters.

"What is it?" Morgan asks, voice small, though nobody answers her.

Peter keeps reading, eyes roving over the text. _De-aging. Rupturing the continuum. Irreversibly altering space-time_. The warnings continue on and on, finally ending with a short paragraph about how Tony has _no way of listing the dangers comprehensively_ , so there could be thousands of even worse possibilities. Suddenly, Peter realizes why nobody except Morgan has suggested this before; they all know it's too dangerous a route to take. He doesn't doubt that the Avengers know of this box (otherwise, how would they have used it?) but the danger, for them, isn't worth it.

"Let's do it," Peter says suddenly, surprising himself.

Harley twists in his seat. "What?"

"Let's do it," he repeats. "This doesn't change anything. We knew it wasn't going to be easy, right? But - but it's worth it."

Slowly, Harley's face spreads into a grin. It's different from the previous one's Peter's seen, though; this one is warm, and genuine. "It really is," he says.

"So are you gonna save him now?" Morgan asks, voice small.

Peter smiles down at her. "Yeah, Mor. We are."

Unanimously, Peter and Harley decide not to share their plan with anyone else. The Avengers would stop them and Pepper would probably skin them for even suggesting it, so they vow to keep it to themselves. After the funeral is over, the Avengers filtering away to wherever they're headed next, Pepper comes up to both of them and hugs them tightly.

"Thank you for coming," she tells them. "You both have a place here, forever, okay? Keep in touch."

"We will," Harley says, voice solemn.

"Do you have somewhere to stay?" Pepper asks him, disentangling herself from the hug as they all take a small step away. "Or are you heading home?"

"No, I'm stayin' in New York for a bit," Harley answers, then hesitates.

May must sense the lie about to come, because she makes a small head movement and then Pepper is following her out of the room.

"Huh?" Harley's nose scrunches up, craning his neck to see them.

"Ssh," Peter says quickly, and closes his eyes to focus on his hearing. May's voice floats through the room faintly.

"They've been stuck together since they met each other," he hears May saying. Someone makes a noise of agreement, presumably Pepper. "If they need each other's support right now, then... that's what they'll have."

"Thank you, May. For everything," Pepper tells her. "He'd be so grateful."

"It's nothing," May says, voice going slightly muffled. Peter guesses they're hugging. "Take care of yourself, and text me whenever you need to. I'd be happy to help with Morgan whenever, too."

"Thank you so much," Pepper repeats.

"We should probably get back to them," May points out, and then they're walking back through the doorway and Peter tries to look like he wasn't listening. The raised eyebrow May shoots him suggests he's failed.

"Everything alright?" Harley asks, and May gives him a smile.

"It is," she says. "Harley, would you like to come back to Queens with Peter and I?"

Everyone swivels to look at Harley, and Peter feels his face slacken with shock. He wasn't expecting _that_.

"Uh," Harley blurts, "really?"

May nods. "Yup."

"Ma'am, that would... that would be great," he says honestly. "Thank you."

May squeezes his arm, giving him a smile. "It's no problem, Harley. You're family, now, anyway."

Peter guesses she's right, actually. It was Tony that linked them all, but ironically it's only now he's gone that they've all been brought together. They make a weird family, two moms and three unrelated kids, but Morgan, Pepper and Harley are his last links to Tony. He wants them to stick around, and he supposes they feel the same way.

"Will you come back soon?" comes a small voice, and Peter glances down to see Morgan looking up at both of them, bottom lip trembling. "Please?"

Peter drops down to his knees, on her level. "Hey, hey, don't cry," he says, when her eyes start filling up. "We'll come back. I _promise_."

"Daddy promised," she whispers, and Peter feels his heart shatter further than he knew was possible.

"Oh, _Morgan_ ," he says, and then she's hugging him tightly and his arms are around her. "It's okay, Mor. I'll come back, I will."

"Me too," Harley says, crouching down to the floor. "We'll all come back, okay?"

Peter lets go of Morgan with one arm, beckoning Harley into the hug, and then all six of their arms are tangled around each other on the floor. Morgan's in the middle, Peter and Harley on either side like guardians, and she's sniffling softly. Peter hugs her tighter.

They stay like that long after Pepper and May have left to give them a little more privacy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am honestly floored by the reaction to the first part of this fic - thank you guys so much! <33 i'm absolutely loving seeing all your comments.
> 
> this chapter has a loooot of peter and harley! i absolutely love their potential dynamic, so that's the main bulk (along with quite a bit of fake science, lol) and a new character towards the end! hope you all enjoy.

Queens is... strange.

The five year difference in half the population becomes starkly familiar as May drives them through the neighborhood. Delmar's is open as always, looking no worse for wear, unchanged since Peter last saw it: but the owner of the bodega two blocks over was dusted, by the looks of his boarded-up store. A group of small preteens cluster together around an unhappy-looking pair of sixteen-year-olds; half the friendship group has moved on, but the other half are stuck in the past. Peter thunks his head against the window as they drive, watching people walk around with expressions like they're on the streets for the first time. Across the intersection, two pairs of couples and an older woman are arguing. The noise filters through to his enhanced hearing; two of them owned the apartment before they got Snapped, and the new tenants are refusing to give up their home of five years. The landlady just looks exhausted.

Eventually, they pull up outside their own home. May, he learnt when they reunited, got Snapped the same way he did, as well as their landlord, and it meant that their apartment building got practically abandoned along with  half of New York. Five years later it's still standing, and the returned residents have all been pitching in to repair it. Right now, it's almost done; they've got functional water and gas again, at least, though the building still doesn't look like it used to. May leads Harley up the stairs to their apartment, Peter bringing up the rear.

It's easy enough to get settled; Peter already has the bunk bed in his room, so Harley grabs the top one without too much trouble. Peter walks in to see his closet open, the Spider-Man suit hanging in full view, and forgets to breathe for a second; he shuts the doors quickly. He's not ready to deal with that yet.

"Are you boys okay?" May asks, poking her head into the room. Harley sits up from where he's been lying, sprawled, on the bunk.

"Yeah, May," Peter tells her. His voice sounds rough, even to him.

She smiles. "Good. Dinner in an hour, okay? Call me if you need anything."

"Thanks, ma'am," Harley says, and she shakes her head.

"Don't call me ma'am, Harley, I like to pretend I'm still young," she reprimands, though she's still grinning. "Call me May."

"Thanks, May," Harley amends. May gives them one last smile, eyes shooting over both of them, before she ducks out and closes the door.

Harley jumps down from the top bunk with a light thump, and Peter turns to see him cracking his knuckles. "Right. Let's get thinkin'. We need materials."

Peter produces the flash drive from his pocket and plugs it in to his own computer, opening the first couple of schematics. "All the components are here. And  _pictures_  of them."

Harley looks over. "Well, I reckon most of the Avengers don't know the resistor color code off by heart. Probably just easier to be able to recognize them on sight."

Peter shrugs. "Fair. I..." He squints at the screen, recognizing several of the components. "I have a bunch of this stuff already. We can make a checklist."

"Bare metal we can get from the Compound," Harley adds. "It got destroyed, right? Saw it on the news. Nobody'll be cleanin' that up just yet, so we go and get whatever raw metal we need from that."

Peter nods. "Yeah, that sounds good. We need... a bunch of rebar to make a tunnel at least twice our height, this says, and we need to make a floor to jump from. We can attach the focusing stuff to the ceiling, probably. That height doesn't matter."

"So that's... what, a couple of twelve-foot pieces of steel and a shitty platform?" Harley works it out on his fingers, checking them off as he talks. "What do we need for the focusin' bits?"

"Lenses," Peter says. He glares at the screen. "There are two of us, so it's... fourteen that we need."

Harley frowns. "Damn. There any way to make them?"

Peter shakes his head. "Don't think so. There's a note about where to get them, though."

"Where?"

"Some supplier in Brooklyn," Peter says. "Apparently they make... 'giant fresnel lenses'. To order."

Harley grimaces slightly. "That sounds expensive."

"Yeah," Peter agrees, dragging out the word. "We'd need, like... three thousand dollars."

Harley whistles slightly. "Yeah, I don't have that kinda cash."

"We can find them in the Compound, right? From their machine? We could go back to Mr. - uh, to Pepper's," Peter suggests, "and get all the bits from that mini one they used for Cap?"

"Didn't they dismantle that one?" Harley asks, squinting slightly. "Too dangerous, and all that stuff?"

"Yeah, but I'm sure they still have the pieces stored somewhere, right? We could try and find them."

Harley grimaces. "Nah, Pepper would definitely notice. And ask, and then... probably stop us. We're gonna have to search the Compound. What about the, uh..." He nods at the second schematic Peter has open. "The watches?"

"We need a couple of normal ones," Peter answers, reading off it, "and then we can rewire the insides, I think. I can do that."

"You got a watch?" Harley asks. Peter holds up his wrist at the same time as the other boy, and they both look between their identical StarkWatches. Peter laughs slightly. "Perfect," Harley says.

"Okay, so... all we need is somewhere to  _build_  this stuff, now," Peter completes.

"Yeah. Somewhere... with the right equipment. We need solderin' stuff, metalworkin'... is there any kind of lab around here?"

Peter sits straighter in his chair. "Midtown," he says, the realization hitting him suddenly. "Midtown would work. My school, it's... like, two blocks away. It was abandoned after the Snap." Apparently, most of his classmates were part of the Vanished. It meant Midtown had to merge with another school to keep running costs down, so the building was left empty in the process. Though they're all back, Peter figures they'll take more time to set it back up than a couple of days.

Harley claps his hands. "Great. That's... are we done, then?"

Peter blinks. "Yeah. I think we are."

Harley grins widely.

Then, May's calling them for dinner, and Peter shuts down his laptop as they leave the room together.

The next morning, Peter wakes early. May is up, judging from the clanging noises coming from the kitchen, and washing the dishes. A haze settles over him as he listens, and he recognizes the depressive feeling. He pulls his door open, trying not to wake Harley.

"May?" he asks, voice slightly hoarse from sleep, rubbing his eyes and squinting slightly as he pads into the kitchen.

May turns from the sink to see him, and smiles. It's slightly sad, slightly pitying, and it makes everything come rushing back in a storm. Tony. The grief looms above him like a wave, and all he can do is stand underneath it and stare in horror. "How are you feeling, baby?" she asks.

Peter takes a breath. "Fine. I'm... I think I need a hug," he confesses.

She holds out her arms. "C'mere."

Peter walks straight up to her, hugging her tightly as her arms close around him. One of her hands goes up to stroke his hair, and he nearly cries.  _Tony used to do that all the time_. The wave hits, crashing over him, and Peter lets out a sob. "I miss him," he chokes out.

"I know, baby. I know." Her voice is low, sad, like it's always been. Peter is far too acquainted with loss, but May is a constant through every occurrence.

"It's only been a day, May. How... how am I supposed to do it when it's years?" he cries into her shoulder.

She runs her hand through his hear, shushing him lightly. "You're the strongest person I know, Peter. You got through it with your mom and your dad, and... and Ben, and I know you'll get through this. You have me, you have Ned, and all your friends at school, and Morgan and Pepper and Harley too. We're all going to do this together, remember?" she tells him, and Peter takes a shuddering breath.

"I know," he says. "It's just... so  _hard_."

And he means it, really. Carrying on is hard, difficult in a way nothing else is. Every day is a struggle; it was when his parents died, and after Ben, and now the bone-deep exhaustion is back again. Peter wants to crawl into bed and never come back out.

May's arms tighten around him. "It gets better, honey. I promise you."

"I really hope so," Peter whispers.

The haze doesn't dissipate over the course of the day, the wave of grief still rushing past his ankles, but it does go down significantly. Harley wakes at around noon, claiming to be jetlagged, and May just rolls her eyes and asks him what he wants for lunch. Peter immediately suggests Delmar's, and May agrees but  _take the car, please, Peter, the streets aren't safe at the moment_. She elects to stay in the house, giving Peter a twenty-dollar bill and telling them to stay out for as long as they want. Peter's grateful for the space, and soon he's in May's car (Tony's Audi he used to pass his test was at the Compound, he belatedly realizes) and driving along the block to Delmar's.

"So what does this place do?" Harley asks, frowning slightly as Peter drives.

He keeps his eyes ahead, flicking the indicator as they turn left. "Sandwiches."

"Sandwiches?" His voice is doubtful. "Don't y'all have any hot chicken places here?"

Peter smiles. "They're good, I promise. If you smush 'em down they taste great."

"Don't suppose they're tuna, are they?" Harley mutters, tone suddenly quieter, moodier, the question darkly rhetorical. Peter doesn't reply.

When they get to Delmar's, Peter stays with the car while Harley jumps out and recites their order: two of Peter's usual, a dependable favorite for Harley to try. It's only a couple of minutes before Harley's back in and slamming the door shut, pointing straight ahead with a dramatic _Drive!_

Peter does indeed put his foot down and accelerate away, and instructs Harley to try his sandwich. The other boy unwraps it quickly and takes a bite, and the expression on his face says it all.

"Good, huh?" Peter asks, glancing at him.

"I do declare," Harley begins in an affected voice, "that this is fuckin'  _tasty_. Damn."

Peter grins. "Told you."

"So," Harley says. "We goin' back to May's? Because... now might be a good time to check out the Compound."

"You think?" Peter asks.

"Yeah."

"Okay," Peter acquiesces, and digs into his pocket with one hand to toss Harley his phone. "Can you let May know we won't be back for a little bit?"

"Sure," Harley says, catching it. "Password?"

"7737."

He types for a few silent seconds, and then Peter hears the buzz of his phone vibrating.

"She says it's fine," Harley relays, "and to let her know when we're thinkin' about headin' back."

"Cool," Peter says.

He's taken the drive with Tony and/or Happy enough times to know the route, so Peter navigates the roads on the way easily. Harley asks various questions as they go about their surroundings, to which Peter recites a litany of 'interesting facts' about Queens and New York. Harley seems to find them worth listening to, though, so he carries on. The drive only lasts around half an hour, the streets getting progressively more empty as they head out of the city. In roughly half an hour, Peter brakes and the car slows to a halt in front of the wreckage of the Avengers Compound. He gets out almost in a trance, staring at the place he used to call his second home.

The remains of a high wire fence lie abandoned on the ground, dust and debris pinning it down into an unnatural shape. The main building is collapsed and destroyed in the center, a towering behemoth of rubble. Bullet casings litter the ground, and Peter can see several abandoned Wakandan weapons. He cringes at the thought of the loss they must have faced.

"C'mon," Harley says quietly, and Peter starts. He hadn't realized Harley had got out of the car. "Let's go in."

Harley ducks under the neon tape stretched around the whole Compound, an ineffectual measure to attempt to restrict people from entering. It flutters weakly in the breeze. Peter follows.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Harley asks as they pick their way across the rubble to the center. "We gotta have some kind of system, right?"

Peter opens his mouth to reply, but suddenly they're standing in front of a particular pile of debris that Peter recognizes. Harley says something else, but Peter doesn't hear it. He's frozen, staring at the spot where Tony -

_We won, Mr. Stark!_

He didn't even recognize Peter, not in the end, not after he used the gauntlet. They got a hug and nothing else, not even a word, and Peter didn't even get to say  _goodbye_ in a way Tony would understand. He's hit with panic, suddenly, remembering the way he staggered and fell and breathed out for the last time - it was never supposed to happen like that, it was never meant to be Tony, and then he's holding the gauntlet again and Thanos is yelling and people are screaming and Tony is  _dying_  -

"Peter!" comes a voice, and he jolts out of the memory to see Harley's face swimming in front of him. The noise of battle fades into silence, and Peter registers cold tears already drying on his cheeks. Harley's hands are tight on his shoulders, the grip grounding. Peter is crouched on the ground, arms tight around his knees. He takes in a shuddering breath.

"I'm - sorry, I -" he stammers, and Harley shakes his head.

"Don't worry about it," he says, tone serious. "You okay?"

Peter swallows. "Yeah. I... he, uh...  _fuck_. It happened there."

Harley turns to follow his gaze to the spot, and Peter's shut his eyes tightly by the time he turns back around. "Okay. I'll search there, alright? You go to the other end. Call me if you need me, okay? We'll stay close."

"Okay," Peter repeats. "Okay."

"Good." Harley straightens, allowing Peter to stand from the tight ball he'd curled himself into.

It hits him hard, then, the loss of Tony; whenever Peter freaked out about Toomes, or the building, it was Tony who calmed him down every time. Now, he's  _gone_.

Peter must let out a noise, because Harley turns back and his brow furrows when he sees Peter. "Hey, it's okay," he says.

"He's not here," Peter chokes out.

Harley's mouth works for a second before he says, "I lost my dad six years before I met Tony."

The blatant admission is shocking enough that Peter's momentarily thrown, and the grief raging through him subsides for a moment.

"He didn't die, but he fucked off, so he might as well have. So I told Tony that, and all he says back is  _dads leave, no need to be a pussy about it_. Which was an asshole move at the time. I was, like, eleven."

"Yeah, it was," Peter murmurs.

"But he was  _right_ , in a way. You can cry if you gotta, and you can  _be a pussy_ and stop everythin' to do it, but that ain't gonna bring someone back. We gotta do that now, okay? Keep it together until we get Tony back. If we can't... then," Harley shrugs, spreading his hands slightly, "we don't ever see him again."

Peter stares down at the ground for a second before nodding.

"Right?"

"Right. I - sorry, Harley."

Harley makes a  _psh_  sound out the corner of his mouth. "Don't worry about it. I'm experienced with this stuff."

Peter laughs slightly, despite himself. The wind blows through the wreckage, cold, silent. The only things he can hear now, in reality, are his and Harley's breathing. "So what's the plan?"

"For searchin'?" Harley looks around. "I guess... fan out from this point. You take the bit from there to...  _there_ ," he says, gesturing, "and I'll take the other half. That okay?"

Peter nods. "Yeah."

Harley gives him twin thumbs up. "Great. Let's do it."

Hours pass as Peter and Harley search, moving blocks of concrete and drywall and, occasionally, large shards of glass out of their way. Rebar lies among the wreckage, thick columns of steel that Peter grabs and piles up. The first time he comes across an intact focusing lens like the ones in Tony's instructions he lets out a whoop, holding it up to the sky like he's discovered an ancient treasure, but the rest of the searching gets progressively less exciting. They spend hours picking through the rubble and salvaging what they can, and it's been roughly three when Peter's phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out.

_May Parker, 15:16pm_

_Are you two okay?_

_May Parker, 15:53pm_

_Baby, I assume you're both alright but I'm a little worried._

_May Parker, 16:08pm_

_Please text me back, Peter_

"Oh, shit," Peter mutters under his breath. He hadn't even noticed the first couple of messages coming through. Hastily, he types a message back.

_Peter Parker, 16:09pm_

_Sorry May! We got distracted, but we're good._

_May Parker, 16:10pm_

_Don't worry about it, baby. Do you know when you'll be back?_

Peter looks up, squinting at Harley's form in the distance. "How long are we staying here?" he yells.

Harley's distant figure shrugs, throwing his hands up. " _I_  don't know!" he shouts back, voice far away.

Peter rolls his eyes.

_Peter Parker, 16:11pm_

_I'm not sure. Can we let you know?_

_May Parker, 16:11pm_

_Okay. Just make sure you're back before ten, okay_ _?_

_Peter Parker, 16:12pm_

_Okay, May. Text you later!_

He stuffs his phone back in his pocket, and jogs over to catch up with Harley.

"Any luck?" Peter asks, slowing to a stop. Harley is crouched down, lifting a small slab of what looks like the remainder of a wall off the floor. There's a twisted strut underneath, shining through the dust that covers it.

"I'd say so," Harley grunts with exertion, reaching under to grab the strut. He pulls it out quickly just as he drops the wall with a  _thunk_ , and straightens. "This should be useful."

Peter takes it, examining the damage. It's surprisingly intact, and long enough to serve as part of the center tunnel. "Yeah, definitely."

"What have you got so far?"

Peter turns, and points to the pile he's been steadily building several feet away. "A ton of rebar," he says, "and I found a couple of lenses. They were actually intact, which is cool."

Harley grins. "Great. How many?"

"Eleven, believe it or not."

"So we only need... what, three more?"

Peter thinks briefly before nodding. "Yeah, that's right."

Harley nods. "Cool. I'm sure we can find them. Do we have enough to make the jump tunnel?"

"With that," Peter says, pointing at Harley's own pile of salvaged steel, "yeah."

Harley flashes a grin and holds his hand up, and Peter high-fives him. " _Hell_  yeah," Harley says. "Time to head back with this stuff?"

Peter nods. "Yeah, probably a good idea."

He texts May quickly before shoving his phone back in his pocket, and looking up to see Harley struggling under several armfuls' worth of rebar.

"Fuck," he grunts, wobbling slightly, and Peter dives to grab several bars of steel off him before he drops it all. "That's  _heavy_."

"Yeah, it's  _steel_ ," Peter says, amused. "Let me take some."

"No, I can -" Harley cuts off, seeing Peter make the  _thwip_  signal with his hands. "Okay, fine, but that's cheatin'. Just so you know."

"Sure," Peter says airily, and Harley shoots him a glare from behind the mountain of steel.

"Screw you."

Peter laughs, and scoops up the rest of the rebar.

They have to go back to get the focusing lenses, despite Harley's insistence that they can do it all in one trip. On the way back, Harley's eyes narrow and he diverges from the route, hopping across a mound of rubble. Peter carries on walking towards the lenses.

" _Ha!_ " Harley yells, and then Peter turns to see him beckoning. "Look!"

"What is it?"

"More lenses," Harley announces, and Peter picks his way over. "I can't get them  _out_ , but they're there."

Peter eyes the wreckage on top of it. It's a thick, sturdy piece of reinforced glass framed by rough concrete. "If I lift it, can you get them out?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Three, two, one -"

Peter grips the glass and  _heaves_ , and it lifts up. It's deceptively light-looking for its weight, and Peter's muscles burn as he holds it up, gritting his teeth. Harley dives in under him and grabs an armful of lenses, dodging back out.

"Stand back!" Peter warns, and as soon as Harley takes a step away he drops the glass with a heavy  _thump_  and a crack. He makes a hissing noise with his teeth, leaning forward. Below the glass, the remaining lenses behind have fractured and splintered. "How many did you get?" Peter asks, dreading the answer. If there aren't enough intact ones left, they're fucked.

Harley counts briefly, tossing two of his collection, one cracked and one bent in two, to the ground. "Five. There are five here - so we have enough!" He lets out a whoop that reverberates oddly amongst the destruction.

Peter grins. "Awesome! I'll get the rest."

It's around ten when they get back to Queens, both worn out from searching, with a trunk full of steel and a backseat full of glass. May's car protests angrily at the load, squeaking worryingly at every bump in the road.

"Sorry, car," Peter mutters.

They stop off at Midtown first, dragging all the materials inside to just outside the workshop. The school is dark and half-boarded up, a shadow of its former self. If Harley weren't with him, Peter would find it creepy; right now, it's only unnerving. Luckily, the workshop's not locked, so they don't have to bust down the door. Peter's not sure he could handle destroying more than they absolutely need to of his school.

"Looks like this has everythin' we need," Harley remarks, running his fingers over the power tools left in the corner of the room as he passes his phone's torch over them. They're too big to be removed easily, Peter guesses, or they just got left behind in the disorganized turmoil after the Snap. "The solderin' stuff is gone, but you have that, right?"

"Right," Peter confirms. "We'll come back tomorrow with... we'll need a soldering iron and my laptop. Yeah."

"Sounds like a plan," Harley says, and then there's a yelp and a crash and they spin round to see a figure sprawled on the ground behind them.

Harley thrusts the phone at them like a weapon, illuminating their face, and Peter stares. " _Ned?_ "

Near-comical shock flashes across Ned's face. "Peter?" he stammers.

Harley holds a hand up. "Whoa, who's this?"

"Ned, what are you  _doing_  here?" Peter asks, rushing to help him up. Ned grabs his hand, pulling heavily on it as he stands.

"I - I couldn't sleep, and I keep feeling like I need to walk around to calm down, but this is the only place I know that's empty and safe and - wait, what are  _you_  doing here, Peter?"

Harley steps closer. "We can't just -"

"We're building a time machine," Peter blurts. "To save Tony."

Ned's mouth drops open.

Harley looks at Peter with a frazzled expression, and he defends, "C'mon, Ned knows about Spider-Man and everything, too. He's trustworthy!"

"Wait,  _he_  knows about Spider-Man?" Ned asks, pointing to Harley and looking between them. "Who is he?"

"Harley, Ned, Ned, Harley - look, he can help. You can help, right?" Peter questions. "We need to keep this under the radar, but, man, I know how good you are with electronics, and -"

"Yeah!" Ned blurts. "Of course I will, Peter!"

Peter lets out a breath, and turns to Harley. "See?"

Harley narrows his eyes for a second, before he shrugs and his expression relaxes. "Yeah, okay. Anythin' that helps is okay in my book."

"Sweet," Ned breathes, grinning. "Thanks."

Harley smiles back. "'S alright."

After they say goodbye to Ned, Peter initiating their lengthy handshake before they arrange a time to meet tomorrow and part ways, Peter drives them back to May's. Despite the interruption, they're only half an hour later than Peter said they would be.

"Hey, May," Peter calls as they enter, ducking his head to spot her. She's in the living room, and as they walk in she twists to see them.

"You were out late," May remarks.

"Sorry," Harley says awkwardly.

"We, uh... we were just walking around," Peter says lamely. "It's good to... y'know, clear the mind. All that stuff."

May holds his gaze for a second before she says simply, "Okay."

"Okay?" Peter repeats. "I mean - yeah, okay. Cool."

"I thought we could get takeout today," May says, changing the subject, "if that's okay with you, Harley?"

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely."

"Do you have any food you want?"

Harley glances at Peter, and grins. "I do, actually. Hot chicken."

After takeout, Peter begrudgingly agrees that hot chicken is indeed on a similar level to Delmar's sandwiches. Harley lets out a whoop at this. Early the next morning, they leave the house again. May's already gone to her hospital shift, taking the car, so Peter leads Harley through Queens on foot this time, towards Midtown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ned my boy! ~~i honestly seem to be unable to write fics without at least mentioning him~~ so he's joining the tony stark squad!
> 
> also i promise the 3000 reference was not intentional, i made up fourteen lenses and then figured out the actual real-life cost of those would be like 3000 dollars i'm so sorry djdjdj


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. i really considered splitting this chapter, since it's got a lot of cliffhangery-type moments, but i decided against it because, right now, nobody needs more angst, right? as such, you get the final chapter as one - it's pretty intense in some parts, but the happy ending comes too! i hope you guys enjoy it.
> 
> also as a side note, carol danvers is gay as hell with that haircut sorry i don't make the rules ~~but she is the lesbian queen all hail~~

The first thing they do once they've arrived is property damage. Harley walks into the workshop and leaves again, instantly; Peter's left standing there with Ned, wanting to go find him but also feeling the need to wait in there in case he returns. He doesn't have to wait long, in the end; there's a clank and a thump, and then Peter's spider-sense yells out. He dodges away just as the ceiling collapses in a cloud of dust and rubble, Harley coughing slightly as he staggers, now on their level.

"What the _fuck?_ " Peter asks, astonished.

"This room wasn't twelve feet high," Harley says, by way of explanation. "Now it is."

" _Dude_ ," Ned protests. "This is our _school_."

"And now your school has a really tall room."

The next action they take is to plug in Peter's laptop, powering it on and opening up the schematics for reference. Surprisingly, constructing the machine's skeleton takes the least amount of time. Harley is the one who constructs the jump tunnel, mostly, while Peter solders together the focusing mechanism, a fan made of the fourteen lenses they'd found. The circuit controlling it is some of the messiest work he's ever done, but it works so he'll accept it. Ned, on the other hand, spends most of his time working on the watches. Their lack of lenses (and Peter's unwillingness to let Ned throw himself into danger) means that they only have room for two to take the trip, so only Peter and Harley's watches get reworked. They come out each day, all three of them, to work on the machine, and go home late in the evening. Thankfully, May doesn't push; Peter guesses she's just happy he doesn't seem to be drowning in his grief again. Ned brings along his own electronics on the second day to join Peter's, and with both of them together they manage to produce the right number of resistors. On day four, when Ned runs out of wire, Harley throws a huge coil of red, insulated copper at him, stolen from Midtown's tech store.

"How did you get in there?" Ned asks, astonished.

Harley shrugs. "Picked the lock."

" _Damn_."

The tunnel is the first to be completed, and then Harley moves on to connecting it all up. He spends the day dragging tables in from other classrooms to stack next to each other on the second level, the wooden desks the perfect height to make a platform. He's just about done when Peter finishes attaching the last of the lenses to the ceiling, bolting it on securely. Peter cringes at the damage they're doing, but it's secondary to their main goal right now. He can apologize and fix it later.

"Focusing mechanism's done!" Peter calls down, and Ned gives him a thumbs up from the lower floor.

Harley squints up at him, the lenses reflecting bright light onto the spot he's standing in. Peter quickly adjusts the lens nearest to him, and the beam shifts sideways. "How's the control comin' along?"

"Great," Peter says, truthfully. Harley's already completed a rudimentary control panel connected to the jump tunnel and to the high-voltage supply they dragged in from the physics department, so it's just a matter of linking that to the focusing mechanism's circuit. "Done in... okay, now."

He straightens up, dusting his knees off, and Harley grins. "Nice job. Ned, how's it goin'?"

"I'm almost done," Ned answers, glaring at the watch he's working on slightly. Peter recognizes it as his _concentration face_. "Maybe... a few more hours? I still need to put the alert systems in, but I'm close!"

" _Nice_ ," Harley says, looking pleased. Peter sits at the edge of the hole and slips down, landing next to him. "I can't believe we just built a time machine."

Peter turns and looks up at it, stretching through the ceiling. It's ugly and it's basic, none of the mismatched metal the same color or texture. Peter's pretty sure any Tumblr science aesthetic board would reject it in a heartbeat, but the machine is  _complete_ after six days of work. He lets out a huff as his eyes scan it up and down, proud to say the least. That's when it hits him.

"Oh, _shit_."

"What?" Harley asks, and Ned stops, looking up at him with wide eyes.

"The _suits_ ," Peter says, slightly breathless. "We forgot the suits! With - with the Pym particles!"

"Oh, shit," Harley echoes. "Could we... alter existin' ones?"

"Well, yeah, but we don't have the materials to make a suit for you," Peter points out. " _Shit_ -"

"Wait, wait," Harley interrupts. "A suit for me? I... Peter, I built one. With Tony. We spent fuckin' ages on it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah," Harley says, laughing slightly. "It's back at yours, with my stuff. Collapses into my suitcase, y'know."

"Then - then we're fine," Peter realizes aloud. "All we need to do is find a way to get the particles in them. You use yours, I use mine, and then we - we're in business!"

Harley claps his hands together. "Well, then I guess we better go get them."

In the end, it takes them a further two days to perfect the delivery system in their suits. Ned finishes the watches a day before that, one each for Peter and Harley. On day eight of their mission, everything is finally completed. Peter cringes when he climbs into the Iron Spider suit, but he pushes past it. _It's for Tony._

"You guys look _awesome_ ," Ned breathes.

Peter looks sideways at Harley, in a black and gold version of the Iron Man suit. "We do, don't we?" he remarks.

"I love that y'all want to get into this now, but we should get goin' sooner rather than later," Harley says.

Peter nods. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

Ned does a half-salute and scrambles over to the control panel. "You guys get five minutes," he says, as Peter and Harley move over to the edge of the jump tunnel. "If you're not here by then, I'll bring you back. So - I guess just don't miss? When you aim for back here?"

"Wow, thanks, Ned."

"You are absolutely welcome."

"Let's warm this baby up," Harley says.

"Aye-aye, sir," Ned replies, and fiddles with the panel for a moment.

Whirring fills the room and they look up as the focusing mechanism starts aligning, the high-voltage system powering up. The room buzzes, the sound increasing until all Peter can hear is Harley and the loud whirring of their time machine.

"So," Harley says. "I know where we need to go."

Peter turns to him. "Where?"

"There are transcripts of their theories about time travel in those files," he explains, "and they talk about this alternate reality-type thing. They went back into different realities, but Tony put a shit ton of stuff in here about how to go back to a _specific_ reality. Ergo, ours."

"Like Cap," Peter says.

"Yeah, like Cap," Harley agrees, then mutters something inaudible even to Peter. "What we do is we go back to the big battle thing, _our_ battle, and we save Tony. Agreed?"

Peter frowns. "I have only ever heard one plan worse than that."

"What?"

"Your plan is literally the second worst plan I have ever heard," Peter repeats. "That's not a plan! That's an _idea_. _How_ do we save him? We can't just -"

"Stop!"

Peter and Harley jump, twisting round to see a group of people burst in. Ned lets out a shriek as the door bangs open. Peter blanches, seeing Pepper, Happy, Rhodey,  _May_ -

"You have to stop!" Pepper yells over the whir of the machine, and Harley blanches from next to Peter.

"Shit!" he curses, and shouts, "Ned, start it!"

"Don't!" Happy snaps.

From next to him, May pleads, "Boys, this is so dangerous -"

"We have to!" Peter yells back. "May, we can't -"

"Start it!" Harley hollers again.

"He wouldn't want you to risk this," Rhodey shouts over the machine, spreading his hands wide. "You two are damn important to him!"

"Hey, _you've_ done it!" Harley protests, mouth twisted in an angry slash.

"Yeah, but our machine wasn't made from _salvaged metal!_ " Rhodey yells back.

Peter shouts, "How did you find us?"

"Morgan let it slip," Pepper explains. "She told us about the plan."

"Mr. Stark told _us_ how to do this!"

Harley yells, "He wouldn't have left instructions if -"

"Those instructions were for the _team_ ," Rhodey interrupts. "Not you guys. He wouldn't ever want you two to do this."

"Please, Harley, Peter -" May interjects. "Baby, I _can't lose you too_ ," she begs, and Peter feels his eyes prick with tears.

"That's how I felt about Tony," he whispers, and then Harley is grabbing his wrist and setting the clock on Peter's to match his own and yelling.

" _Ned, pull the fuckin'_ -"

Everything disappears.

Blue flashes wildly past Peter's vision, spiraling, dancing, and vertigo steals over him.

"Shit - holy - _holy shit_ -"

Ahead he can barely see Harley's figure, the suit sleek and smooth, the dizzying lights reflecting off his suit and blinding Peter even further. There's a vibration and a beep, suddenly, and he glances down unsteadily to see his watch flashing and beeping on his wrist.

"Okay, okay, this is fine, I just - shit - oh, my God -"

The watch flashes desperately on the right side, and Peter's head jerks up to see two wormhole-like tunnels twisting ahead of them. Harley is clearly angling himself right, and Peter tries to remember how to breathe past the flashing and the light and the spiraling vertigo as he points himself in the same direction. The watch flashes again and he pushes himself left, straight on and he presses his arms to his sides and -

 

\- and they're spat out, screaming and noise and the sounds of fighting filling the air around them as Peter hits the ground hard, the impact jarring through his shoulder.

" _Hell_ ," Harley swears, venom in his voice, panting slightly. "That was - Jesus _Christ_ -"

"Holy shit," Peter pants. He pushes himself up from the ground just in time to see orange light fill the air, and like a strike of lightning he recognizes the magic portals fizzing into existence. As he watches, his past self swings into view, and Peter curses again. " _Shit_. We don't have a plan! What the hell -?"

"We weren't goin' to _get_ here if we'd waited, you know that! We - fuck, we have to move," Harley curses. "Don't let past-you see present-you. We have to keep the gauntlet away from Tony, right?"

"Right, but -"

Harley launches into the air, repulsors firing, and Peter swears again, jumping up and firing his shooters. The chaos of battle rages around him, and he can only hope it provides some sort of cover from his past self. A gang of Outriders converges on him and he dodges underneath them, sprinting as fast as he can. There's a cry from above and Peter's gaze jerks upwards, seeing past Peter crash to the ground, white-faced. Carol swoops in, glowing, and Peter watches from a distance as she takes the gauntlet. He watches as she loses it, running through solutions in his mind, staring as Thanos bats her away like a fly, and then Peter _moves_. He sprints and webs the gauntlet closer to him, taking off running in the opposite direction as fast as he can. Thanos roars from somewhere behind him, the sound shaking his bones, the gauntlet thrumming in his grip.

_Keep running. Keep running._

He runs past enemies and allies alike, trying to dodge as much as he can, trying to take the damn thing as far away as possible, and then suddenly he's on the edge of the battlefield. Peter turns, slowly, and the view unfolds before him, the picture of devastation. Chitauri litter the ground, overrunning everyone Peter can see. Wakandan spears clash loudly against alien weapons. As he stares, an Outrider beast charges and scatters a group of sorcerers, light flashing in bursts around them as they fall. Thanos is fighting the Avengers in the center, Tony and Steve among his assailants. They're losing, it looks like, and suddenly Peter is struck by a bolt of terror. What if Tony dies to Thanos this time? It won't matter if Peter has the gauntlet. He'll die all over again, just the same, and Peter will _lose him_. There's no way to get rid of the enemy, not now that they can't let Tony Snap them all away.

He looks down, and the solution clears in his mind.

Slowly, Peter slides his hand inside the gauntlet. Metal clicks and whirrs, moving to fit him, the plates shrinking down to hug his small wrist, and suddenly _pain_ shoots through him, lancing in jagged, fiery spikes up his hand. He chokes back a cry, the edges of his vision going gray as he tries to remember how to breathe.

"Peter," comes a voice, breaking through the haze in his mind. Harley is standing there, faceplate down, an expression Peter can't name on his face. "What are you doin'?"

Peter's mouth is dry. He can't let Tony die. He _can't_. "Someone needs to end this," Peter says, almost numbly, despite the fiery pain in his arm. "He's going to _die_ if someone doesn't end this, and - and it's better it's me than him."

"No, it's _not_ ," Harley protests, audibly trying to keep his voice level. "This - shit, Peter, this isn't a plan either. He's not goin' be able to live with himself if gettin' him back means losin' you!"

"I don't _care!_ " Peter yells. There's a bright, painful glow at the edge of his vision, and dimly he registers it's coming from his own arm. "At least he'll be - he'll be _alive_ and I can _save_ him, not like last time, or - or Ben, or -"

"What about Morgan?" Harley asks accusingly. "Peter, she _loves_ you. You're her big brother. And - hell, you're my brother too, but it's goin' to _crush_ Morgan."

Peter's aware he's crying now, hot tears rolling down his cheeks. They're running out of time, the clock counting down to one side or the other noticing that the gauntlet is being held between two out-of-place teenagers on the edge of the fight. The pain burns and burns, racing along his shoulder now, corrosive and agonizing. Peter can't think straight.

"At least she'll have her dad back," Peter whispers. "I can't lose him, Harley. Not again."

"I get it," Harley says, surprisingly gentle. "But you can't kill yourself to do it."

Suddenly, there's a _thump_ behind them and it reverberates through Peter, jolting him and making the pain scream in return. Peter gasps, clenching his free hand in a tight fist, and looks up. Carol is standing in front of him, eyes alight with glowing gold.

"You're in the wrong place," she remarks. "You're a target, alone over here."

"Stay back," Peter snaps.

"You need to give me the gauntlet."

" _No_ ," he bites out, because if she takes it and she doesn't use it then Tony could still die. He _cannot_ let that happen.

Carol's gaze intensifies. "Give it to me, kid."

"Don't - someone needs to _end this_. I won't let him die again, not - not this time," he gasps out, hand screaming in pain.

"This time?" Carol repeats, and her eyes narrow. "You're from the future. You know how this ends," she hazards, and Peter sees Harley nod in his peripheral vision. "Do we win?"

"Yeah," Harley says quietly, nodding. "But... Tony dies."

"Someone needs to end this," Peter repeats, voice hoarse. His arm flares in agony again, and a whimper slips out. "To - to Snap the Chitauri."

Carol gives him a measured look, and then she holds out a hand. "I'll do it." When he hesitates, she steps forward. "I'm the closest thing there is to a human Infinity Stone. I can handle the gauntlet, I promise you," she says. "Let me do it."

"You have to get rid of them. _All_ of them," Peter says numbly, and Carol nods.

"Use the Reality Stone," Harley interjects. "Make it look like he used the gauntlet, and - and he died. We have to keep this bit _lookin'_ the same, or we won't ever go back to do this in the first place."

Carol nods again, and lays a hand on the gauntlet. The pain racing up Peter's arm jerks and flares before it subsides, and he lets out a shaky breath as the metal enlarges again and slides off his hand. "I will," she replies.

Peter stares at his own arm. The skin is burned and scarred, glowing faintly. Vaguely, he can feel a bone-deep pain pulsing through it.

"Shit," Harley murmurs, and Peter looks up to see him focused on the scarring.

Carol raises her fingers then, fixing her gaze on the battle ahead of them, and puts the gauntlet on her own hand. It glows and she stiffens, letting out a slight gasp as her body tenses. Peter steps back, instinctively, and then Harley's next to him. His presence is tangible, comforting.

"You might want to step back," Carol says over her shoulder, still looking towards Thanos and the Avengers. "This is going to be quite a sight."

She takes a visible breath, and the world goes white when she  _snaps_.

When the shock fades, the noise does not return.

There's no fighting, no screaming, no clashing of blades or rattling of guns, just that eerie silence Peter recognizes from when Tony, and Thanos before him, used the gauntlet. As he stares, the battlefield slowly returns to motion. People stand up, looking around with wide eyes. Before Peter's eyes, a Chitauri fighter right in front of them disintegrates into ash, dark dust blowing away in the nonexistent breeze.

Carol makes a pained noise next to him, flinching slightly as the gauntlet falls from her hand. "Crap," she hisses. "That... that _hurt_. A lot," she mutters, raising her hand to examine it. A thick, twisting scar winds up what's visible of her wrist, glowing darkly, and though it's far more intense than his own scarring it's nowhere near the destruction Peter saw on Tony, or even Bruce. "Could be worse," Carol remarks, slightly idly. Then, quieter, "Maria likes scars. How are yours?" she asks, and Peter frowns, glancing down. The skin on his arm is fully healed, like he'd never even tried to wield the power of the universe in the first place. He looks back up at Carol, stunned.

"I tried my best," she says.

"Thank you," Peter breathes, and then Harley is tugging at his elbow and pointing. In the distance, Peter sees Tony stagger on unsteady legs, Rhodey looking devastated next to him. His right side is destroyed, his arm near-smoking as he falls against the rubble -

Peter's breath catches. It didn't work.

"No," he whispers, before Harley swears.

"Shit, no - Peter, wait, that's Carol's fakey version. Look _there_ ," Harley tells him, altering his pointing just slightly, and then it's like the dust clears as Peter sees a frazzled, confused-looking Tony staring at his own stumbling body from several meters away.

"Nobody's noticed yet, but we need to _go_ ," Harley tells him. "I'll grab him, you sync up with our present and we go back together, okay?"

"Okay," Peter manages, and then he's lunging through the sky after Harley, keeping as low as possible to the ground to avoid attention from the people - including his past self, looking horrified and pale - clustered around the fake Tony. Ahead of him, Harley latches onto the real Tony's arm, who looks up with shock and horror flashing across his face, and Peter twists his watch as he reaches out to lock his hand around Tony's bicep.

"Are you synced?" Harley yells, and Peter nods wildly and they both activate their watches and the blue light consumes them.

This time, there's no navigation of tunnels, just that blinding light that builds and builds. Peter clutches onto Tony's arm, holding it as tight as he can, because he refuses to lose him again and -

 

\- and they crash to a stop in Midtown, hitting the clumsy array of desks full-force. Someone groans, one of the tables falls over with a metallic clang and a thump, and the room goes silent.

Peter opens his eyes to see Pepper, presumably in the middle of yelling at Ned for pulling the lever, staring at them with shock in her eyes.

"Tony?" she whispers, and Peter's head turns to see him right there, alive, right next to Peter -

"Mr. _Stark_ ," Peter half-sobs, scrambling over to him and clutching him tightly.

"Pete -"

Harley lets out a delighted sound and throws his arms around them both, and then Pepper is kicking off her heels with a clatter and sprinting up to them.

"Tony, man -" Rhodey begins, cutting himself off as he embraces all of them tightly.

"It worked," Harley laughs, voice sounding choked. "It _worked_. You're back."

"What happened?" Tony asks. "What the _hell_ happened?"

"You died," Pepper says, voice muffled as she buries her head into Tony's shoulder. "You died, Tony, I - you defeated all of them, but you _died_ ," she repeats.

"We changed it," Peter tells him, still hugging him tight.

"You used the - goddamnit, you two used the time machine?" Tony accuses, stepping back from the hug. Harley suddenly looks down, and Peter feels a coldness creep over him. "That was so _fucking_ dangerous, you two, I can't - I can't fucking believe you tried that. You absolute _idiots_ ," he snaps, but there are tears in his eyes and then he's gripping them both in a tight hug again.

"I love you, Mr. Stark," Peter chokes out, and then he feels May's arms enclose around him as she joins the hug.

"Yeah. What he said," Harley says, audibly trying to sound like he's not crying. "Would hate to lose my, uh... _connection_."

Tony lets out a half-laugh, half-sob. "I love you too," he tells them. "My _dumbass_ family. I love you so, so much."

There's a pause, and then Peter's hears Ned's small voice.

"I'm, uh... I might go," he says awkwardly.

Tony raises his head. "Did you help? With this?"

"Yes!" Ned blurts. "Uh - yes, I did, sir."

"Then get over here," Tony tells him, and Ned nearly trips over himself to join the hug.

One more person appears, hugging everyone else from the outside, and Tony raises a slight eyebrow at Happy.

"I'm not hugging you," Happy says, and clears his throat. "This is... security. No bullet's getting to you through this way, that's for sure."

Then, there's a pop and a fizz and May and Ned let out matching shrieks as the mechanism above them explodes, a shower of sparks raining down on them. The hug fractures as they all jump apart, one of the lenses clattering to the floor where they were standing. The smell of sulfur rises in the room.

Peter looks at Harley, and laughs. "Guess we did blow something up."

"Told you," Harley says.

When they all return to the Stark house, together sans Ned, Pepper is the first to go in. She's been worrying all the way back, fretting over leaving Morgan alone. She'd been panicked enough about Harley and Peter to rush out of the house without her and then forget about it, but once they were all safe her worry returned with a vengeance.

"Morgan?" she calls, sounding near-scared as she opens the door. "Baby, we're back."

There's a clatter, and suddenly Morgan's small form comes running out. "Mommy! Are they okay?" she asks, and then she catches sight of Peter and Harley in the doorway. She looks up at them, mouth open. "I'm sorry for telling," she says, voice suddenly small. "I was scared and then Mommy was sad and -"

"It's okay, Morgan," Peter tells her, bending down to her level. "You did the right thing, I promise."

"Okay," she says. "Are you okay?"

Harley ruffles her hair, and gets a pout in return. "We're okay. We, uh... have something to show you."

She blinks up at them as Peter straightens, confusion creeping into her expression. "What?"

Harley and Peter take a step back, away from the doorway, and then Tony walks through and stops in front of her.

"Hey, kiddo," he says softly, and there's a split-second where she freezes before Morgan launches herself into him, wrapping her arms around his knees before he crouches down and adjusts to hug him properly.

" _Daddy!_ " she cries, and then Morgan is crying and Tony is crying and Peter can't hold back his own tears.

"I'm so proud of you, Maguna. So, so proud. You helped me come back, you know that? You beautiful, clever little _genius_ , Morgan, I - I love you so much, kiddo. _More_ than three thousand."

"More?" Morgan asks, eyes cartoonishly wide.

Tony laughs, but it comes out close to a sob. "Yeah, more," he tells her.

" _Wow_ ," Morgan says. "Peter and Harley helped!" she adds, changing the topic, and Tony turns to smile up at them.

"Yeah, I know," he says. "And I'm so proud of them, too."

That's when Tony opens an arm wide and both Peter and Harley drop down to join the embrace, and then everyone is sprawled on the floor and hugging once again, happy and together and _alive_.

A family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it! i really hope you guys liked that ending - cheesy as hell, but everything is a-ok now. please feel free to leave a comment letting me know what you thought, or just to chat - i love hearing from you guys! thank you all for reading. <33

**Author's Note:**

> edit: YOU GUYS djdjdj this reaction is insane. thank you so so much for reading <3
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! please feel free to let me know what you think, or check out my profile for some irondad-spiderson relief after endgame.
> 
> come find me on tumblr at [blackwatchandromeda](https://blackwatchandromeda.tumblr.com/)!


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